79 posts categorized "oprah"

June 09, 2011

Paige Wiser is out at the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years, the last three as its television critic, because her "Glee Live!" concert review in Sunday's newspaper mentioned one song that wasn't performed and described another she did not see.

"I'm at fault," Wiser said. "I do understand what a big deal this was. I am ashamed, and it's just a matter of making bad decisions when you're exhausted."

Wiser, 40, said she brought her two young children to the show Friday at Rosemont's Allstate Arena with the approval of an editor who told her "cute kids' reaction would be more than welcome" in the story. Her son fell off a chair during the show. Her daughter vomited into a cotton-candy bag.

They left three songs later, only 13 numbers into the concert, but her report included commentary on the encore based on information from previous "Glee Live!" shows.

The Sun-Times on Thursday posted an editor's note about the lapse and Wiser's dismissal, and withdrew the review from its Web site.

For commentator Glenn Beck, whose $40 million in annual earnings comes from a variety of sources including a premium subscription website, it means replacing the daily Fox News Channel show he's ending this month with his own pay-video website, GBTV.com. "We're tired of a middleman," Beck said on his nationally syndicated radio program.

And for the Chicago Tribune, beginning next week, it means a redesign online and in print, where the paper will see the addition of 40 to 44 open pages for news per week to accommodate what Publisher Tony Hunter said in a note to employees will be "more content, greater depth, new columns and features."

June 06, 2011

Katie Couric's syndicated one-hour daytime show will air weekdays at 3 p.m. on Chicago's WLS-Ch. 7 and seven other Disney-ABC-owned stations when it makes its debut in September 2012, the media company announced Monday.

WLS now runs the syndicated "Inside Edition" at 3 p.m. and "Jepoardy!" at 3:30 p.m., as a lead-in to its 4 p.m. news. WLS confirmed Couric's show will air here in that hour, adding that it is too soon to know where the displaced programs will go but they will continue to air.

The benefit of this for "WCL" is to build its social network community, with more than 8,600 Facebook friends clicking "like" on its page after its first seven shows.

The benefit to viewers is that going on their computers keeps them from fully focusing on what is clearly a still-gestating program that has so much still to develop that it probably should be viewed on an ultrasound monitor rather than a TV.

There are problems. They're not insurmountable. But they will be if they aren't addressed quickly, and this is critical because there isn't a smart person in local media, whether they work at WLS or not, who isn't rooting for "WCL" to prove its viability.

At risk is not just an ambitious live local television show, but the prospects for anyone else in Chicago commercial TV to get the chance to attempt launching a new live local show that doesn't just rehash headlines and/or plug local businesses.

May 26, 2011

That was second only in Chicago on Wednesday to the 14.9 household rating (nearly 522,000 homes) that tuned in for the season-ending edition of "American Idol" on WFLD-Ch. 32 that night.

Winfrey's swan song on Channel 7 claimed a 38.1 percent share of the audience in the 9 a.m. hour, while the two-hour "Idol" held 24.8 percent of the prime-time audience. Additionally, WLS' 11 p.m. repeat of the telecast averaged a 5.7 household rating and a 14.4 percent share of the homes watching television in its hour.

Complete national viewership and household ratings won't be available until early next month.

May 24, 2011

Pat Tomasulo of Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN-Ch. 9 is set to make yet another visit to Disney-ABC's syndicated "Live With Regis & Kelly."

Tomasulo (pictured right) is set to fill in for Regis Philbin as Kelly Ripa's guest co-host on Friday. Other scheduled guests are to include Lombard, Ill., band Plain White T's, Milwaukee-born actress Heather Graham and the winner of "Top Chef: All Stars."

May 21, 2011

Phil Donahue revolutionized daytime TV talk by walking into the audience and showing people parts of the world they didn’t necessarily know about.

Winfrey revolutionized daytime TV talk by being the audience and showing people parts of the world they didn’t necessarily know they shared.

Before the Internet enabled anyone anywhere to find hundreds, thousands or sometimes millions of others with a common point of view, problem, solution, experience or interest, Winfrey and her Chicago-based program connected with those people.

Live from Winfrey's Harpo Studios in Chicago, Gayle King (pictured right) will host “The Gayle King Show: 'Oprah' Finale After Party,” which is set for 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Thursday on cable's OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. The program also can be heard on SiriusXM Radio's Oprah Radio channel.

Most "Oprah" stations run the show in the late afternoon. But Winfrey has held down Channel 7's 9 a.m. slot since January 1984, when she took over the local "A.M. Chicago," the precursor to the nationally syndicated program that's ending its 25-season run next week.

Without "Oprah," WLS plans to return to its roots with "Windy City Live," a local show it plans to introduce on Thursday. The new program's hosts will be Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini.

May 18, 2011

All across America, it's graduation season. People close out one chapter of their lives and look ahead to the next in a rite of passage attended by those whose support helped get them this far. It's a time for reflection and revelation, excitement and anxiety, pep talks and pride.

With pomp and ceremony, if not "Pomp and Circumstances," television has the same ritual.

About this blog

This is an expansion of the Chicago Tribune column I have written since April 2005, and the columns I wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and Los Angeles’ Daily News for two decades before that. It’s TV, radio, newspapers and whatever, both locally and nationally. Beyond sharing what crosses my desk—and my mind—this will be a venue for you to share your takes with me as well as with each other. About Phil Rosenthal